Hosted by Bookbag, this in-conversation is hosted by Dr Katie Natanal from the University of Exeter. A friend of Bookbag, Katie is also great friends with Alex Hyde (she was one of the first to read a draft of Violets) so we're expecting a really special conversation.

A young woman, Violet, lies in a hospital bed in the closing days of World War Two. Her pregnancy is over and she is no longer able to conceive. With her husband deployed in Burma and her friends caught up in transitory love affairs, she must find a way to put herself back together.

In a small, watchful town in the Welsh valleys, another Violet contemplates the fate she shares with her unborn child. Unwed, an overseas posting offers a temporary way out. Plunged into the heat and disorder of Naples, her body begins to reveal the responsibility it carries even as she is drawn into the burnished circle of a charismatic new friend, Maggie.

Between these two Violets, sung into being like a babe in a nursery rhyme: a son.

Violets is the fictional reimagining of the author's own father's story, and brims with what it means to want to be a mother. Through the pages weaves the voice of the unborn child in verse. We loved this short, graceful story.

Cost: Free

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